


Sunseeker

by shiftylinguini



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Banter, Crushes, Divorced Astoria Greengrass & Draco Malfoy, Drinking, Drunk Texting, First Time, Flirting, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Getting Together, Grinding, H/D Erised 2020, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Humor, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Magical House Fixer-Upper Draco, Muggle Technology, Past Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Pining, Post-Hogwarts, Single Parent Draco Malfoy, Texting, Writer Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:40:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27705683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiftylinguini/pseuds/shiftylinguini
Summary: Harry is a struggling writer.Namely, he is struggling with: writing his next book, dealing with his agent, finding a decent tea strainer, fielding his friend's concern over the aforementioned book, and figuring out who the cat loitering in his garden belongs to.He also has a slight liking-Malfoy problem. Okay, he has amassiveliking-Malfoy problem.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 63
Kudos: 816
Collections: H/D Erised 2020





	Sunseeker

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Moonflower_Rose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonflower_Rose/gifts).



> Moonflower_rose, I was so excited to write something for you! You are utterly lovely and I had fun (possibly too much fun) peppering this with little things I hope you will enjoy! (and slightly butchering the settings of iconic Australian films LOL). 
> 
> Lastly, thank you so, so much to the mods for running this fest, and to my amazing beta for being so generous with their time and feedback!

***

**Monday.**

_Just write your autobiography._

Harry looks down at the text on the parchment. It glitters at him briefly before settling across the page in a line of dark, cursive letters. 

_No, what? Awful idea_ , Harry scribbles in reply. He goes back to stirring his tea. 

It’s a beautiful morning―or, it was. It is now a beautiful afternoon, and Harry has done fuck all, all day. Well, he’s texted Draco back and forth. Maybe his next novel could just be a series of texts, an examination of an enmity turned friendship turned let’s-annoy-each-other-constantly-over-wizarding-social-media. People might read that. Maybe? Harry would personally rather lick a Hippogriff, but you never know. There’s a market for everything. 

Harry stares into his tea, some of the badly strained leaves lazily floating to the surface before he prods them back down with the back of his spoon. It reminds him vaguely of Divination, of Ron’s made-up predictions and Hermione's exasperation and Trelawney’s sickly, cloying perfume. Harry wonders what these tea leaves might have in store for him today, were he able to actually read them. _Today you will sit in an empty cottage in Abbotsbury, with a soggy cheese and pickle sandwich that you’re not looking forward to eating, and be completely unable to find a pair of socks that match._. Harry purses his lips, thinking. _And go and buy a proper tea strainer, mate, the one in this pot is shite._ Harry sniggers, once, then dissolves into proper giggles as he tries to arrange the floating tea leaves into any kind of discernible shape. If he swishes his spoon it looks a bit like a string bean. A demented willy? Harry snorts.

Ah well. At least it’s not the fucking Grim. 

Harry sets the cup down with a solid clunk against the hardwood table. He wonders if 2pm is too early to admit he’s having a crisis and give up for the day. He’s already having mental conversations with his tea; it’s hardly going to get better from here. 

The parchment glitters again. _Go on. Write it._

Harry fiddles with his quill for a moment before he replies to Draco. _Everyone already knows my life story tho. I was born, I grew up, blah blah blah. There’s unofficial biographies about me on sale for a Sickle on every corner in Diagon, Malfoy._

 _So? Do your own, and just make extra stuff up. Embellish it. Or tell your devoted readers about the true Harry Potter story._

Harry thinks. Then makes a face. Most of everyone already knows the bare bones of his early life, and the borderline invasively intimate details of his life since Hogwarts. He’d prefer not to ever write about the Dursleys, really. His expression turns sour. _Rather not tell anyone that stuff, to be frank._

There’s a moment before Draco replies. 

_What, not even the time you single-handedly solved a crisis between the Merpeople in the lake and an over-amorous giant squid? And your shirt got wet and all the boys and girls swooned and then you won the House Cup because of your nipples?_

Harry laughs, loud and weird, and oddly relieved at the conversation not going any deeper. He also, strangely, blushes about the wet shirt thing. Draco’s such a dick. Harry kind of likes it, now Draco’s stopped being such an incredibly _mean_ dick. 

_That never happened, Malfoy. Why are you like this?_

_Not enough attention as a child. Or too much, I forget. Go on, write that. You’ll make loads._ There’s a quick pause in the writing, then a new line. _Can donate it to charity again or however it is you get your saintly rocks off these days._

_Piss off. Only you would make me feel bad about donating my royalties._

_Well someone’s got to._

Harry laughs, then fiddles with his typewriter. It was a gift from Arthur, done up to apparently respond to Harry’s magical signature and automatically correct his spelling into the intended words. Harry hates it. It’s not so much that it doesn’t work, but that it works too fucking well, and Harry ends up with a page and a half about how he wants lemon tart for pudding instead of the next development of Penelope and her sister’s frustrated relationship since Penelope’s divorce. Which is what Harry is currently trying to write, not his bloody shopping list. It’s not his fault he gets hungry and distracted when he’s writing. 

Of course, the fact that he keeps being distracted by lemon tart might be one of the reasons this book is taking so long. It shouldn't be this hard to concentrate. He shouldn’t be this bored by his own plot. 

The parchment shimmers with another message.

_Got to go. Scorpius is up and about. Either hungry or wants the loo, so I’m chucking you over._

_Sounds fair. Give him a kiss from me_

_Merlin no, he loathes you._

Harry laughs at the lie. They both know Scorpius adores Harry, because Scorpius is two and _all_ kids love Harry, because Harry is great. With kids. He is not great with writing. Harry groans, the sound whooshing out of him in a constipated exhale. There is _nothing_ written on the page in front of him. Not even the hint of a sentence. 

Harry sets his quill on the table, telling himself it’s a good idea he’s being thrown over for a two-year-old’s toilet needs, because it’s about time he fucking got this novel on the road. He’s not getting up again until he’s written a chapter. Or, like, a page. A bloody paragraph. Harry cracks his knuckles, determined and motivated and god who is he kidding? He’s not going to write a fucking thing today. Harry gets up to make more tea instead.

Maybe if he’s lucky the tea leaves will spell out what the hell he’s supposed to be doing with himself. Harry knows, deep down, that that’s an awful lot of pressure to be putting on the tea. 

**Tuesday.**

There’s a cat in the back garden. 

Harry’s staring at it. He’s been doing this for a good half hour, he estimates. It’s a good cat. Or at least, a pretty one. It’s ginger, and sleek, with white paws and a laziness about it that makes Harry want to nap in the sun for hours, too. It’s also dug up half of his spring onions, and had a rather obnoxious poo in one of the flower beds. Harry kind of wants to pet it. The cat, not the poo. 

He Summons his parchment and quill, settling back against the windowsill he’s perched on. He balances the parchment on one knee.

 _I should get a cat_ , he carefully writes to Draco. He smiles when he’s done. 

_You should write your fucking book_ , Draco writes back almost instantly. 

Harry kicks his legs out petulantly, banging his ankle on the window before slouching off to his typewriter.

Draco’s right. It’s past noon, and Harry’s still in his PJs. Which means he’s in his pants and some ratty socks and a vest with a hole over one nipple that Harry’s had since he was fourteen and which was once white but is now a sort of off-putting grey-beige colour. Greige. He should really throw it out, but there’s a pineapple on the front riding a skateboard, and Harry’s fond of it. He should also try and write something today, Harry _knows_ that, and Draco doesn't have to just come right out and say it. 

Harry sulkily writes three pages―about a wizard named Harvey who had an excellent cat called Martha who fancied herself a garden landscaper, and who also had a posh friend named Derek who was part Veela and a giant buzzkill. And an awful cook. He’s okay at crosswords though; Harry doesn't want his character to be _too_ unlikeable. 

It’s not very polished, but it’s the most Harry’s written in at least six weeks, and it’s also absolutely not what he’s meant to be writing. Harry’s counting it as a win anyway. Maybe he can pen a book of short stories, or something. That’s better than nothing. Even if all the short stories are really _incredibly_ short, and based on things Harry can see in his garden, and people he used to hate in school and now really doesn’t. _The Cat That Did a Poo and The Prat Who Learned Some Social Skills_. Harry snorts. Sounds like something Teddy would write. Maybe he could get Teddy to read it for him one day.

When he opens the backdoor that evening, he finds that the cat is waiting for him, blinking benevolently after having apparently ripped up Harry’s herb bed. He can see what looks like flower petals hanging out of its mouth, which means it's had a go at the geraniums, too. Lovely. Harry decides to let it in anyway. At best, he’ll have some company while he doesn’t write a book. 

And at worst, it’ll chew up all his indoor plants and throw up on his bed in the morning, and then Harry’ll have the inspiration for a sequel.

**Wednesday.**

"Harryyyy!"

Harry winces as Agatha’s voice sings out to him from the front door. Oh fuck. Oh fuck and crap and shit and―

"Aggie!" Harry beams as she walks in. Or, he tries to. It possibly works. "So nice to see you, my favourite agent!"

"Oh god." Agatha lets her bag drop onto the floor, the strap sliding off her shoulder dramatically. "You’ve not written a thing, have you?" 

"Ah." Harry lets his arms fall back to his sides. Right. So, that’s a no on the convincing beaming, then. Harry sags in his chair, relieved at not having to fake productivity at least. He blows a loud raspberry, at his book, at the universe, at his writer’s block. And all over the table in front of him. 

"Wellllll." He pokes the papers to his left. "No? I mean, I’ve written nothing on The Four Sisters, but I did, um. Write a bit about a cat. Which, y’know. Wasn’t actually that bad." 

Agatha slowly looks at the ginger cat sitting on Harry’s window sill, then back to Harry. He’s still in his pants. Not the same ones as yesterday, at least, but these ones are infinitely uglier. He looks like he’s losing the plot, which in the literary sense (ha!) he has actually lost. Agatha seems to agree with Harry’s self assessment. She sighs the deeply resigned sigh of all those who have had to deal with Harry while trying to write his third novel and shuffles past him, her scarf trailing limply over one shoulder. 

"Right, well." She flicks the kettle on with one long finger, then Summons a teacup towards herself. "Let’s have it, then."

"Have what?" 

"The cat story." Agatha beckons with one hand as she measures out tea with the other. She doesn’t look up. 

"Oh." Harry glances down at the pages next to the typewriter. He looks back at Agatha, then gets up. "No, it’s crap."

Agatha’s eyes widen. "You just said it wasn’t!" 

"I lied." Harry smiles sweetly, and Agatha laughs, loud and genuine. He doesn’t think his story is actually crap, but he doesn't want to show her anyway. He’s weirdly fond of it, especially after he added more to it last night. It’s almost a proper story, now, and it’s still not what Harry is meant to be doing, but he’s having an odd amount of fun writing Harvey and Derek rescue Martha from the evil gnomes in his garden. 

"You’re such a shit." Agatha fills up the tea pot, and Harry rests his hip against the counter. They both watch as the leaves happily float out of the strainer, staining the water, ruining the tea. Those bastards, Harry thinks fondly. 

"What an awful teapot," Agatha mumbles, wrinkling her nose. Harry laughs. 

"It’s the worst. Actually, most of the stuff in here is either broken, or just shit," he explains happily. It's true; the cottage Harry’s renting came fully stocked, but with stuff Harry suspects the previous Muggle owners bought at a thrift shop for 30p, and only because they felt sorry for it. The other day he even found a fork in the drawer which only had two prongs. He and Draco had a good laugh about that when Harry told him. 

Agatha purses his lips. "So, this whole ‘getting away from London’ thing isn’t helping with the writer’s block at all, then?"

Harry groans. 

"Shhh." He waves his hands like he’s swatting a bee. "Don’t say the B word, don’t jinx me." 

"Love, you’re a month away from deadline and you’ve written sod all. You can’t get anymore jinxed." Agatha’s words are blunt, but her expression is sympathetic. Harry magnanimously chooses not to take offense, even though every petulant bone in his body wants to get stroppy about it. It passes quickly, thank god; Harry’s far too old to be having a tantrum in front of his agent, no matter how much he wants to. He pours some tea for Agatha, and then for himself, reaching up to grab a packet of chocolate digestives from the highest cupboard. He raises one eyebrow in question and Agatha nods approvingly at the selection. They head towards the small kitchen table. 

"Draco thinks I should write my autobiography," Harry says once they’re settled. He sips his tea and makes a face when he gets a mouth full of leaves. Fucking worst strainer in England.

"Oh, _does_ Draco." Agatha smirks, and Harry rolls his eyes. 

"Quit that." 

"Quit what?" she asks innocently, stirring her tea and letting the spoon chink against the glass. Harry narrows his eyes. 

"The―oh, you know what! The thingy, that you do. Make smug, smirky faces when I talk about Draco." Harry frowns when Agatha just raises her eyebrows. "We’re mates and that’s all and you know it." 

"Do I?"

"Ugh, yes. We’re not, like." Harry rips open the biscuits in lieu of answering properly, then shoves one in his mouth. A mouthful of chewed-up biscuit is a good conversation ender, he’s found. He doesn’t like this chat, or that fact that Agatha keeps trying to have it with him. Or that Hermione does too. Or that bloody Ron even mentioned something about how Harry, "Talks to that bloke an awful lot for someone who apparently doesn't want to get into his fancy knickers. What, I’m just, _sayin’_ , Harry, it is a bit sus, and you probably want to snog him.". 

Harry doesn’t care what any of them are ‘just sayin’’. He and Draco are mates, and that in itself is miracle enough, and so what if Draco is a bit fit and Harry is a bit prone to noticing that. He notices lots of things: trees, cats in his garden, that sushi is gross but somehow stinky cheese isn’t. That Draco’s bum is amazing. All just normal things, it’s no big deal. 

"You staying for dinner?" Harry asks through a spray of crumbs, as a peace offering for being lousy afternoon company, and also for that whole thing about not writing the book he promised her. 

Agatha wrinkles her nose at Harry’s manners. "Depends." She sets her tea cup down, then takes a biscuit for herself. "Can we get a curry? And do you have wine?"

"Oh, Aggie." Harry tries to frown at her disapprovingly, but feels his lips tick up into a smile at the same time. "It’s like you don’t even _know_ me."

He’s Summoning the take away menu to him before she’s even had time to start laughing. 

**Thursday.**

Harry wakes up with two things: a bit of a hangover, from too much wine shared with Aggie over some pretty average korma, and several new messages from both Hermione and Draco. 

_Harry_ , Hermione writes. _How are you going out there? Don’t forget tea at ours next Thursday. We’re making your favourite. And by ‘we’, I mean, Ron is. I’m still banned from the kitchen since we had that issue with the herby banana bread, but how was I supposed to know that the rosemary from the Apothecary down the street would react with the bananas and make the bread sentient? They should warn about that, honestly._

Harry laughs, struggling one leg and then the other into his joggers. He remembers that banana bread. He thinks it’s still with the Unspeakables, which is hilarious given that the banana bread kept, well, _speaking_. 

_Have you thought any more about talking with Aggie about changing your deadline? You’re putting too much pressure on yourself with this one, and maybe that’s why you’re having so much trouble with it. You can afford to take your time, or even leave off writing this one indefinitely. You’ve been going non-stop since the war, Harry. It’s okay to take a break._

Harry makes an unhappy face. His reflection in the mirror makes it right back at him. God, he looks awful, bags under his eyes and his hair sticking up on the side he’s slept on, like the wing of some bedraggled, dying bird. He’s been sleeping loads lately, so he’s not sure he has any right to look so crap. But then again, _hangover_ , plus Hermione does have a point; Harry’s not really good at stopping, it seems, at standing still or letting himself have breaks. He’s a time-filler, a silence-avoider. His first novel―published under a pseudonym―was a roaring success, his second was too, but also came with his identity being properly rumbled. His third novel seemed like it would be a breeze, but the pressure seems to be mounting and Harry suspects he just…doesn’t want to write it. At all. He doesn’t like to think he’s been throwing himself into writing in order to procrastinate from getting on with his life, but he doesn’t want to outright lie to himself either. So he ends up just stood there in front of the mirror in his weird cottage-escape hideout, toothpaste foam around his mouth, in need of a shave, and as stuck as he ever was. 

Draco’s message just says, _Autobiography idea : talk about the time we shagged in the loos at school._

Harry nearly chokes on his toothbrush as he reads it. His mouth feels like something’s fermented in it, and he wants a new tongue, and he’s laughing so hard he almost gags. It’s far too early for Draco to be hilarious. 

_Draco_ , Harry writes back once he’s minty and dressed and feeling marginally human again. _When would we have found time to shag in a loo?_

_We were star-crossed lovers. That’s what the Prophet said. We would have made time, Harry._

_I barely had time to wank at school. Let alone get a leg over. Soz._

_Doesn’t matter. Everyone thinks we did. Just run with it._

It’s true. Since becoming sort of friendly-ish, to then becoming actually friendly text mates, there has been a lot of speculation about the history between Draco and Harry. It’s all bollocks, of course; Harry properly hated Malfoy in school, and the feeling was mutual. And very fucking warranted as far as Harry’s concerned. It’s just…not so warranted, now. 

It took ages for them to get on good terms, and rightly so. Harry wasn’t going to become chummy with the likes of Draco Malfoy just because his then-wife Astoria was best friends with Harry’s agent and Agatha kept dragging Harry to parties and events that Draco and Astoria were at. That was not on Harry’s career agenda, making friends with Draco; Harry decided this the first time he saw Draco, Astoria and baby Scorpius at an event. Draco was just as pointy and snooty looking now as he had been in first year, and he could get stuffed. Harry wasn’t even going to be arsed saying hello to him, or to Astoria, or to his frankly fucking adorable son, Jesus what a cute baby. But nevermind all that, Harry was not interested in being polite, regardless of chubby-cheeked newborns. 

Except. 

Harry lasted about two months of glaring sullenly at Draco whenever they both happened to be at the same event, before he realised it was getting in the way of actually enjoying the parties. And, it was making his face look really squinty and jawliney in the bad way in all the event photos. By the time Harry’s first book was published, he and Draco weren’t speaking, but they were nodding across the room, and by the time Harry’s second novel was out they’d had all of three conversations, and quite pleasant ones too. They had also had a really fabulous yelling match in the back garden of Sandra Kernig’s (budding fiction author) fancy London house. Harry had been slightly too drunk to remember the details of what set it off, but it started at the canapes when someone mentioned the war, and ended near the coy carp pond with both Harry and Draco _yelling_ about the war. It wasn’t very nice. It was hideously impolite of them to do it at Sarah’s, and Harry will blame the whisky sours for that, along with a general lack of impulse control. And a lifetime of trauma. That’ll usually set him off. He’s not sure what Draco’s excuse was, but Harry thinks it might be something pretty much along the same lines. 

They weren’t invited back to Sarah’s (not really that surprising) but Harry didn’t feel too bad about it. Well, no, he did feel genuinely pretty rubbish about it for the next week or so, all stirred-up inside and cranky, but it was bound to happen the more he and Draco had to rub elbows at social events. They had history, and it was not good; even the remotely positive times they had interacted had happened in the midst of a war, in mansions full of mad men or in a swirl of flames. Harry had just hoped this most recent blow up didn't make things too hugely fucking awkward the next time said elbow rubbing had to occur between them. 

He found, to his surprise, that the row was actually a bit cathartic. The next time Harry saw Draco―at an industry event in support of fuck knows what, Harry just went where Aggie told him to―they got drunk again, and they didn’t fight once. They even made paper cranes out of the napkins, because _god_ some of these parties were boring, and exchanged ParchText addresses so that Draco could make sure Harry was at Miss Eventide’s book launch next month. On the surface Draco said it was because it was a good networking opportunity, but really it was so he had someone suitable to bitch about it with now that Astoria was out of the country and taking their son to meet her grandparents in France. 

One week later, and Miss Eventide’s party was awful. Harry nearly fell asleep twice, he ate too many creamy dips and crudites and felt sick, and Draco drank a bottle of champagne and got the giggles in the middle of Evelyn’s speech. 

Astoria was also not back from France, but Scorpius was. At home with a babysitter, Draco drunkenly told Harry, and Harry just nodded, still concentrating on the wings of his napkin crane. It took him the better part of the evening to realise this was actually a bit odd, and it still didn’t even twig when Aggie told him to keep an eye on Draco as he stumbled off to the loo looking a bit green. "I think his wife’s just left him. Harry," she said, exasperated but not unkind, when Harry didn't seem to understand why he ought to be following Draco into a toilet. "And I think he’s also about to vom."

She was right, on both counts. Astoria didn’t come back from France, and Draco was ill in the bathroom at Miss Eventide’s, and then again after Harry Apparated them both to Draco’s house, and then _again_ in the morning. Draco likes to say it was the shock of seeing Harry sat on his sofa, but they both know it was the third bottle of bubbles. Besides, Harry had to stay over. He couldn't expect the babysitter to stay the night, and Harry was more than happy to entertain Scorpius in the morning. Truth be told, Draco probably threw up because he felt so guilty about getting sloshed when he had Scorpius to look after. Harry wasn’t going to judge him; he didn’t know the first thing when it came to parenting. Scorpius always looked happy when Harry saw him, so Draco must be doing it right. 

It felt like a friendship was inevitable after that night, Harry seeing Draco at his probable worst and Draco in turn not reacting badly to this. As fighting a troll forged a bond between Harry, Hermione and Ron, so did holding Draco's hair out of his face while he upchucked make Harry warm to him a surprising amount. Fatherhood suited him, and hanging out with Draco suited Harry. The fancying part came later, and was inconvenient but not the end of the world. There are times, even, when Harry wonders if it would be so bad to just tell Draco he likes him, that Draco wouldn’t mind or that he already even knows. Draco certainly gets a kick out of talking about made-up trysts they've had. 

Harry's not sure if that’s actually just wishful thinking on his part, though, and some laziness too. It would be great if Draco could just read minds, Occlumency aside, and Harry didn’t have to do any of the labour of, like, actually voicing his emotions.

Annoyingly, that doesn’t seem to be how things actually work, so Harry's just resigned to wanking in the shower and probably dying alone. Oh well. He's been through worse. 

He happily turns back to his ParchText conversation. 

_Sorry I’ll have no time today to chitchat about lying in my autobiography, I have an actual proper novel to write_ , he scribbles imperiously. 

_Wonderful, Potter. I’ll speak to you in about an hour when you get bored and want to procrastinate then, shall I?_

Harry laughs, then groans. He slumps belligerently into the kitchen, his typewriter sitting stationary on the table and somehow managing to radiate menace, and sets about making what will surely be the first of many many cups of tea. 

He lasts about forty-five minutes before messaging Draco.

**Friday.**

Harry notices a pattern.

He spends his days sending photos of his food to Dean, fielding motherly concern from Hermione and dick jokes from Ginny, while whining at Draco and generally getting nothing done. 

It's…a really simple pattern. 

He thinks about changing it, then doesn't. He knows he should talk to Aggie, then he puts his phone on silent and his Floo on private lockdown instead. He watches a lot of telly, takes up knitting only to get fed up with it and give up, and then takes up watching his new ginger cat friend annihilate the poor attempt at knitting, which is much more fun. 

He feels a bit like something has got to give, like he's a moose teetering precariously on ice that's getting thinner; it seemed fun at first, and within his grasp, but now his antlers are weighed down with snow and shit metaphors. _Crick. Snap_. 

He's fucked. 

He writes a few more meandering paragraphs about feline adventures, and masterfully puts off addressing his situation entirely. 

**The Third Wednesday that Harry isn't Writing a Book.**

On the third Wednesday that Harry isn't writing a book, Draco asks for his number. 

_My what?_ Harry scribbles in reply. He's lying on the sofa, distracted, Midsomer Murders on the telly and typewriter balanced on his belly. He's going to write. He's got the proper page inserted and everything, his plotting notes sprawled on the coffee table and floor and under the sleeping cat. He's just also quite invested in how detective Barnaby will solve the current murder spree tearing through the sleepy town this week. It's hard not to get drawn in when someone's been killed by a wheel of cheese to the head. Draco's cryptic numeric queries just aren't that pressing in comparison. 

_Your Muggle mobile telephone number, Potter. I assume you have one?_

Harry sits up with a frown and some effort, and a typewriter to the guts. Okay scratch that, Draco's question maybe _is_ pressing. 

_Yeah I do._ Harry's handwriting has gone to utter shit in his surprise. _But what the hell, do you???_

_Yes._

Harry waits, sitting on the edge of the sofa, but that's all the response Draco offers. 

_Why?? ?????_ Harry waits a moment, then adds several more _????_. He feels there may not be enough punctuation available to truly convey his disbelief at this development.

 _For work._ Draco's handwriting is neat and loopy. _It's very convenient._

"Oh," Harry says out loud. He's…still pretty shocked, but also quite underwhelmed. It's a really boring answer, and also one that totally makes sense. 

_Wait, you have a job?_ he writes, smiling to himself. It's an old joke between them, something Harry blurted out when he first found out Draco actually worked instead of lying around all day eating soft cheese and grapes, which is what Harry assumed posh gits did for a living. He's kept doing since he discovered how marvellously it pisses Draco off. Some parts of their friendship are still quite childish. 

Draco has two jobs, ostensibly. On the one hand he handles houses which contain magical artefacts or signatures, curse damage, old and malfunctioning wards and protections, malignant plumbing and, one time, a whole bunch of actual poltergeist activity. 

On the other, more Muggle-facing hand, Draco is an odd job man who just happens to turn up on the doorsteps of increasingly frazzled Muggle occupants who can't understand why the pipes are clanking and the ceiling is bulging and Great Aunt Hetty's heirloom mirror just called them a twat. 

The home owners are always on their last fraying nerve and feeling less than sensible, and thus more than happy to let the charming man with the scrappy blond bun, denim overalls and stupid name fix up their house while they bugger off to Malta for some R and R and to Obliviate themselves with mojitos. 

Obviously they would expect Draco to have a contact number. God, he probably even has a bank account. A receipt book. 

_A ballpoint pen._

Harry's startled out of his reverie on the extent of Draco's adaptation to Muggle tradesperson skills by the next glittery message flitting onto the parchment. 

_So your number. What is it?_ There's a short pause. _I'll be out of the country for the Hanging Rock Estate job from Saturday and ParchText won't work that long-distance._

"Ohhhhh," Harry says out loud again, this time in understanding. ParchText is rubbish the further away the writers get, lagging as much as a day or two between messages. Which is fine, except that Harry's got rather used to instant gratification when it comes to chatting with Draco. 

_I'm assuming you'll want to keep harassing me while I'm working away and you're pretending to do the same?_

_Shut up. But also, yes please._ Harry scratches out his number, ignoring the giddy little swell in his belly in doing so. He's never really given a phone number to someone he's liked before. It feels oddly teenaged, romantic, a stolen scene from one of Dudley's many videotapes that Harry watched as a lonely kid when he had precious time alone in the house. 

The giddy swell peaks, plateaus, then absolutely splats when he goes through the dizzying emotions of receiving and then reading Draco's first text to him. 

_Hello. It's me. Stop fucking about and go write your book._

Wanker. Harry throws the ParchText onto the floor, then begrudgingly goes and does what he's told all the same

**Saturday.**

Harry’s geographical knowledge is shit. 

He sort of vaguely knew this, but hadn’t had any real confirmation of how bad it was. Hogwarts never had room in their curriculum for topography, and Voldemort never had much room in his killing-Harry schedule to allow Harry to travel that much. As such, he doesn't know his arse from Ireland from his elbow. Still though, when Draco messages him, _This Australia job is horrid_ , Harry embarrassingly takes a full ten, confused minutes to realise that _that’s_ where Draco’s Hanging Rock job is. 

_What could be horrid about sandy beaches and large bouncy animals?_ Harry replies, wracking his brains for the few things he might know about Australia. Dudley, and for a while there his Aunt Petunia, used to be mad for an Australian soap opera, and Harry can vaguely recall a lot of beaches and very attractive people having dramas and outdoor meals and owning a lot of bathing suits. 

He waits a few more moments, but Draco doesn’t reply, and Harry slouches back to the kitchen to his badly-brewed tea and blank typewriter page. 

"He’s probably working," Harry says to the room, poking at his crust of toast. He waves his hand, flicking the wireless on for some company. He’s feeling a bit pathetic today, alone in his rented cottage and in the writing misery of his own making. He’s got six ParchText messages from Aggie and he knows, _knows_ , he needs to respond to her or she’ll come kick his door down. He badly wants to put it off forever. He can’t imagine what could be so bad to Draco about being in Australia right now; Harry would much rather be in another country, he muses, than sat here pissing his day away for the umpteenth day in a row. 

The image of Draco in tiny swimming togs and scowling on a crystalline beach, clear skies and clearer waters in front of him, his hair salt-water tousled and his chest bare, swims into Harry’s head. Harry snorts a laugh, and then blushes all the same. It’s a stupid mental picture, and also a very sexy one. Harry wonders if possibly the fact he hasn’t seen Draco in person for almost a month has led him to daydream him as being fitter than he actually is, or if the accidental intimacy of talking with him every day has instead made Harry’s crush expand to gargantuan proportions. 

He sort of…knows it’s the second one, really. First of all, Draco really is exceptionally fit, Harry doesn’t need to exaggerate that in his head. And secondly, Harry might be great at avoiding dealing with unpleasant things, but he’s at least okay at admitting they’re happening. He just…puts off addressing them. Ergo, he’s quite aware at this point that his feelings for Draco are more than friendly, that a lot of them originate from below his waist and between his legs (because Harry is a hotblooded perv and Draco is hot), and that worryingly even more of these feelings originate…from that private little place in his chest. It’s not love, but it’s a fondness that borders on unbearable at times, makes his face heat and his skin prickle and his mind go a bit white when he thinks too hard about it. And as with all things of this nature, it’s not going away on it’s own, instead getting a little bit stronger with every flirty message Draco sends and every stupid, giddy smile that message subsequently brings to Harry’s face. It’s going to bite Harry in the arse eventually, or he’s going to have to be up front about how he feels, but for now he’s living in limbo and it will have to do. He’ll pretend to write his book. He’ll pretend to be just friends with Draco. He’ll deal with the fallout when it’s happening; _that’s_ where Harry has always excelled. 

Harry morosely sips on his tepid tea, the still as-yet-unnamed cat sitting in the bread basket on the bench and blinking serenely in the mid-morning light. Harry needs to take her into the village soon, scope out the vets and see if anyone is missing a cat with a taste for eating plants and moving into other people’s houses. He’s left a window open each day and night so she can leave if she has a home to go to, but so far she hasn’t gone much further than the overgrown back garden. She’s not wearing a collar, and doesn’t seem mistreated but she’s thin, and on closer inspection has a badly torn ear that appears to have healed long ago. She seems marvellously at home in this house as well, which makes Harry wonder, rather dismally, if someone who lived here before him just left her. He knows people do that sort of thing. It makes him feel a bit sick and miserable, an animal being left behind like that.

He resolves that he’ll take her into town in the next few days. There’s a bike in the garden shed he could use, with a wicker basket on the front he could…well. Perhaps there’s a charm for making cats stay in one place. Harry eyes the cat, which pointedly doesn’t eye him back. He’ll message Hermione. After years with Crookshanks, she must know a trick or two about wrangling cats and feline-adjacent creatures, magical or otherwise. And Harry’s fairly certain this creature isn’t magical. He narrows his eyes all the same. 

"You better not be a person." He sets his tea down, turning to face the cat fully and stare it down. "That would be really weird and uncool and awkward," he elaborates, aiming for a tone of Disappointed, Not Angry, and realising distantly that he’s actually having a conversation with a cat in a breadbin and doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on regarding what things count as ‘weird’. Still. He is kind of waiting for a reply. 

Back leg thrust in the air, and tail wagging ever so slightly, the cat yawns and begins to groom its own arse. 

Harry purses his lips then wrinkles his nose. "Fine. Gross. If you are really a person, then that’s quite rude, just so you know." Harry sighs, turning back to his typewriter. He all but dives on his phone for the distraction when it vibrates next to him. 

_Do you actually have any idea where I am right now, Potter?_

Harry really doesn’t, in any way shape or form. _Not on a beach, I take it?_ He thinks about waiting a bit to send his reply, so that it won’t be painfully obvious he was sitting there waiting for the message, but in the end he figures, fuck it. He thumbs the send button. 

_No. not even close._ Draco’s reply is just as quick. _I’m near a bloody big mountain, which is volcanic or so I’m told. No beaches at all. No bouncy animals, either. Just short dull shrubs that look prickly and dead, red dirt, rocks, a surprising amount of tiny lizards, more rocks, and an absolutely horrible house that people went missing in 100 sodding years ago and that I’m meant to be making habitable._

Harry’s taking this all in, trying to think of something nice to say, when another message pops in under the last. _The trees are nice, though. Ghost Gums they’re called. You should look them up. You’ll like them._

_Okay,_ responds Harry, feeling gooey and stupid and deeply touched that Draco saw a tree and thought of Harry. It’s really pathetic and Harry knows it. Never mind it might be a horrible tree, seeing as Draco doesn’t like his current location. He said the tree was _nice_ , and he thinks Harry will like it, ergo Harry is going to grin like an idiot and then flush himself down the toilet later on for being a ridiculous sap. _Why hasn’t anyone lived there for ages?_ he asks in follow up, just to keep the conversation going. 

_Students went missing. This was a wizarding school, back in the day. All girls, dead posh and expensive. Three of them disappeared, I think, and one of the teachers, too. Never found a trace of them._

_Bloody hell, Malfoy, that’s a bit much isn’t it?? They just vanished in the house?_ he waits a moment, then gives in to his worried urge and sends, _Should you even be there, is it safe??_

 _Probably. To be fair, it wasn’t in the house that they went poof, but on a picnic up the huge, menacing volcanic mountain. I’m sure I’ll be fine._

Harry breathes a sigh of relief. 

_Someone did die here, though, afterwards._

Harry chokes on his tea. _Malfoy!!!_

_What? I’m not here to solve the mystery, Potter. For all I know they were Transfigured into crabs and scuttled off into a hole in the rock. I’m just here to try and see if there’s anything malignantly magical causing no one to want to live here since, other than the obvious reason, which is just that it’s old and mysterious and gives people the willies. Besides, you do recall our own schooling, yes? In comparison, one death and three disappearances is quite tame._

Harry scowls. Malfoy has a point, actually, not that Harry’s thrilled that Draco is currently ensconced in a big creepy death mansion full of lizards. _Well. Fine. But those trees had better be bloody nice to make up for this._ He feels quite proud of that message, really, conveying annoyance on Draco's behalf and hopefully hiding that he was properly worried about him. Harry smiles, satisfied he’s covered his arse here. 

_It’s sweet that you’re worried about me, Harry._

"Ah, shit," says Harry out loud, sagging in his chair. That clearly didn’t work, then. He needs to think of a reply that is somehow dismissive, clever and friendly all at once. He’s basically settled on sending a very mature response of _You are_ , when another message from Draco splats onto Harry’s phone screen. 

_Xxx_

Harry stares at his phone. Draco teases him a lot, often quite flirtatiously. That’s fine. That’s very normal. Draco doesn’t send kisses. That's…not just flirty. That's affectionate. Or at least, Harry thinks it is. 

This, Harry reasons, is why he’s never going to get over his crush. With a sense of deep, deep lack of self-preservation, he sends three kisses back, and then sticks his phone under a chair cushion so he won’t be tempted to stare at it longingly for the entire afternoon. 

He stares longingly out the window, instead. 

**Mid-Tuesday.**

Harry does something monumental. 

Well, he does two things monumental, really. First of all, after a strong mug of tea and a pep talk, he de-cobwebs the bike in the garden shed, greases the chain and evicts several spiders from the wicker basket so that he can take Cat to the vets and find out if she really is looking for a home, or just fancies her freedom and the odd outdoor shit. He even finds a helmet, and cleans it up, before deciding not to wear it because he looks like enough of a dickhead and it doesn’t fit properly over his hair. The thought is there, though. 

Convincing Cat to hop into the bike basket is, as predicted, not an outcome Cat is remotely interested in pursuing. Harry tries luring her with tuna. He tries luring her with a sardine. He tries using a sprat, gags, and then has to wash his hands for ten minutes because oh lord, he smells like the arse end of a fish market now, how lovely. Cat remains unmoved, and eventually Harry gives up and Transfigures the breadbin into a cat carrier, shoves a few tea towels in it, and unceremoniously but gently plonks the cat inside too. She doesn’t fight it or seem really that fussed, which is both nice and also deeply annoying for Harry’s now sprat-scented soul, but whatever. He trundles into town, narrowly pranging into only two privet hedges, and finds out from the vet that Cat is a) not microchipped or listed as missing, b) not pregnant (thank Merlin) and c) absolutely looking for a home. Harry tries not to feel smug when he pops Cat (name still pending, he’s working on it, really) back into her makeshift carrier and prepares to message Draco all about how he’s now a responsible and loving cat owner and Draco was wrong when he said this was just Harry procrastinating from working on his book. Turns out, it was both. 

Cat wrangling achieved, the second thing Harry does is: finally reply to Aggie and sets up a meeting with her on Thursday. 

It’s huge. He has no idea what he’s going to say to her, or how he is going to sort out this mess of a book deal. He should ask for more time, but he has no idea how much he would need considering he’s got, and had, buckets of the stuff and still can’t write a damn word. A word that isn’t a silly story about cat and detective adventures, that is. He’s got two days to think of something, at least

He celebrates all of this amazing Getting Things Done A Bit Sort Of by riding his wobbly cat bike into the town and meeting Ginny for boozy brunch. The pub is called The Holly Tree, and is a bit old and doesn’t have the nicest menu, but they open at ten for punters to drop by, and they don’t seem to mind that Harry and his friends are always rubbish at giving them the right money (Ron even tried to pay with a Galleon once, which Hermione quickly jumped in and pretended was an antique coin, _ha ha, whoops, we’ll just take that back, ta_ ). Best of all, they seem fine with Harry walking in wearing flip flops and carrying a cat. He waves to Ginny when he sees her at a table outside.

"So what about…" Ginny later asks, after about Bellini number three and with her eggs Benedict thoroughly demolished. She tilts her head thoughtfully, elbow on the table and feet on the chair opposite her. "Tina?"

Harry makes a face. "Does she look like a Tina?" He gestures at the cat, sitting on the chair next to him in her basket and licking her front paw. 

Ginny shrugs, taking a sip of her peachy drink. "Sandra?" 

"No, that’s infinitely worse." 

"Says the man who named his owl Hedwig."

"Oi!" Harry frowns, pouring himself some more Mimosa out of the jug they’ve ordered to ‘share’ and which Harry is essentially finishing off himself. "Hedwig was a majestic name for an amazing bird, and you called an owl Pigwidgeon, so I think you’ll find, shut up." Harry salutes her with his champagne flute, then pokes out his tongue. 

"Touche." Ginny chinks her glass against Harry’s. "So, terrible pet names aside, how have you been? How is the book going?" she asks with a smirk. 

"Ugh." Harry makes a face. "Can we talk about that later, I was having a lovely time with you." 

"Okay, we’ll bench that topic." Ginny crosses her ankles and wiggles her toes, painted nails poking out the top of her sandals. Her expression grows somehow even smugger. "So are you dating Draco Malfoy yet?"

"Ughh, _what_?" Harry flaps his hand, his face turning red and into the expression of a constipated gargoyle at the same time. "No, why would you ask that?" 

Ginny laughs, leaning forward. "Okay, shall we go back to talking about the book instead?"

"No, those are both horrible options and you’re an awful friend and person." 

"I love you, too, darling." Ginny sighs, reaching out to place her hand over his. Her rings are cool against his hot skin. "I take it neither are exactly making progress, then?"

"How did you guess," Harry grumbles, chin resting on his cupped palm, face smooshed up. He picks at a piece of croissant left on his plate. 

"Well, you walked in here with a cat and you’ve been avoiding everyone for a fortnight, so. Not too hard to piece together." Ginny pats his hand. "Do you want to talk about it?" she offers sympathetically. "By which I mean, which one would you like to talk about first, because we’re talking about this before you leave here today, whether I have to ply you with more fruity cocktails or not." 

Harry snorts a laugh. "There really isn’t much to talk about. But by all means"—he gestures at the nearly empty jug—"ply away." He sighs at Ginny’s unimpressed look, then shrugs. "There really isn’t. I’ve written nothing, I’ve got a meeting with Aggie in two days to finally admit I’ve got nothing and beg for more time, and in the meantime, I’ve maybe got a thing for Malfoy but he’s in a different country and we never see each other in person these days so fuck knows if it’s, like, mutual, and anyway I’m not going to bring it up and make things weird, so." Harry shrugs again, face red and heart a bit sore. He takes a swig of his drink, polishing it off. "Like I said, nothing much to talk about," he finishes lamely. 

"Oh, Harry." Ginny’s face is kind as she leans closer to him, which oddly makes Harry feel worse. He doesn’t like being felt sorry for, even if he is being a bit tipsy and pathetic. Especially then. 

"Can I say something?" Ginny takes her legs off the chair and places them on the floor so she can rest her arms on the table and give Harry her full attention. 

Harry scoffs. "Gee, that’s not ominous at all, Gin." He sighs. "Go on, though." 

"Okay. Look." Ginny tucks her hair behind both ears, chin-length bob swinging slightly. She holds her hands out palms up. The sunlight glints off her silver rings and bangles. "You know I love you, right?"

Harry makes an assenting noise. 

"And you love me, even though we made a terrible couple." 

Harry nods. "Also true."

"So you’ll be okay with me being blunt, and saying―stop being a fucking martyr." She grabs Harry’s free hand with both of hers, shaking it once and smiling at him benevolently. Harry’s hand bangs against the table, limp and shocked. 

Harry feels, comically, his mouth actually drop open. He closes it again. In the space of time it takes him to do this, he hasn’t thought of anything more cogent to reply with than, "Huh?" 

"Stop doing things you don’t want to _do_ ," Ginny responds emphatically. "You know you don’t have to live like that anymore, right?" 

Harry frowns. "Yeah, I―" 

"Do you, though?" Ginny looks at him disbelievingly. "You don’t have to just let things happen to you when you aren’t enjoying them anymore." 

"I don’t think I do that." Harry swallows, resisting the urge to get defensive. "Do I?" he asks faintly, after a moment’s pause. He wants to listen to Ginny, even though he also really doesn’t want to. He wishes another drink would magically appear in front of him. 

"Well." Ginny levels him with a look. "I’m not saying this to be mean, but honestly, you stayed with me way longer than you wanted to because you were worried about hurting me by ending things, didn’t you? No, I’m not―" Ginny scoots next to him, chair legs scraping loudly on the slate tiles as Harry feels his face do something embarrassing and hurt. It’s not that he didn’t know that he did that, he just…really didn’t realise that _she_ knew it, too. "I’m not having a go at you about it, honest. Really. I just." She puts her arm around his, her small hand gripping his bicep. Her fingers are cool from holding her Bellini, and her nails press in gently as she squeezes. "I feel like…maybe you put off doing it, and stayed in something you didn’t like because you felt like you had to. And maybe you’re doing that with your book? Because you’re stuck but you don’t think you can say no to doing it." Harry squirms a little in his chair, his face hot and his chest tight. He nods after a while, for her to go on and also because she’s hitting a nerve. He thinks she might be right. 

Ginny squeezes his arm again. "You’ve been through hell. I think you’re just really used to…sort of sucking it up, and making the best out of being a mushroom. You know, growing in the dark, making the best of living in shit," Ginny elaborates when Harry stares at her with, frankly warranted, confusion. 

Harry blinks, then frowns. "Living in _shit_?" 

Ginny tries to hold it in, then snorts a laugh. "I know, sorry, the drinks have caught up with me. My point still stands though!" 

"What point, that I’m a mushroom? Honestly, you had me there, saying some real deep stuff―" 

"―Harryyy―"

"And then bam, you’re a shitty Portobello." 

"A shitake." Ginny giggles, then playfully thumps Harry on the shoulder. "No, shut up, stop distracting me. You’re not a shitty mushroom, that’s my point! You don’t have to just make do with whatever is going on. You can stop doing things. You _should_ stop doing things." 

Ginny snuggles closer, and Harry leans into her for a moment to make it clear that, terrible metaphors aside, he’s not offended or bothered or uncomfortable. He is, in a way, but he doesn’t want her to know it. "Don’t be a martyr mushroom, got it," he mumbles. "God, I sound a bit rubbish, don’t I?" He’s suddenly feeling tired and emotional, the way honesty always makes him feel. He wants to crawl away from this conversation, skin first, but he doesn’t. 

"Oh, Harry." Ginny sighs, then kisses him on the temple. "You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met, and the kindest person, too. You’re such a good friend to me. Just. Be a bit kind to _you_ sometimes as well, yeah?" She reaches up and pinches his cheek, slow and tender and oddly motherly. Harry’s eyes feel a bit warm. "Say no to the book you don’t want to write," she says softly. "Let people down. Don’t finish something you started." Harry looks down at her, her head resting on his shoulder and her eyes fond and bright with the drink. 

"Isn’t that, like. Failing?" he asks, his voice thicker than he would like it to be. 

Ginny wrinkles her nose, then nods. "Sort of. But also, not really. It’s the kind that’s worth it, I think." Ginny lifts up her arm then shakes her hand to make her bangles settle evenly down her wrist. "Like when I left the Harpies. I knew it was…well. It wasn’t what people expected of me, or what I was meant to be doing. But I hated it. _So_ much." 

"You love Quidditch," Harry says, somewhat redundantly. He knows that, she knows that. 

"Yeah, but not playing it professionally. Hated all the crowds, and the pressure." Ginny makes a gagging face, then pretends to shudder. "So I quit, and I got a lot of sad looks from people, and disappointed ones too. But it was worth it. I felt so much lighter afterwards." She pats Harry’s thigh. "I’m not telling you what to do, love. Just, making sure you know that, like. Saying no is an option, for your meeting on Thursday. A real actual one. Keep that in mind, yeah?" 

Harry crosses his arms, then lets his breath out in a whoosh. He nods. He's not quite up to saying yes out loud yet, but he's thinking it, feeling it settle down in his chest. 

"Shall I get another round in, then?" Ginny suggests, bumping her shoulder against Harry's. "Wash all this stink of emotions off us?" 

Harry laughs, startled and relieved. "Merlin, yes." 

"Grand. Back in a sec, then." With a last squeeze of his arm, Ginny heads to the bar, her sandals softly slapping on the slate tiles. 

Harry sits alone, at the nice table in the nice enough pub, and tries to take Ginny's words in. There's wisdom in there, and an answer to his predicament too. He thinks of all those hours, days, spent sitting at his typewriter and being able to produce nothing, listening to the radio and quietly panicking. His novel sits abandoned, a mess of expectations, the joy long gone from creating it. The only thing he's enjoyed working on is his silly little cat tales, and he knows this, knew it days ago. It's refreshing, and nice, to write nonsense and just for fun, a bright spot in his days―along with talking to Malfoy. He thinks of Draco's messages, on parchment and on screen, of his long fingers making drunken paper cranes and the fall of his hair across his cheek. Those three kisses, and how much they mean something. How much Harry _wants_ them to mean something, and perhaps they could, if Harry just. 

Did something. 

He looks at his ginger cat, curled in her basket and half asleep. "How about 'Martha'?" he asks, voice soft. "Can't keep just calling you 'Cat', can I?"

She stretches one paw out, flexes it then releases, and blinks at him syrupy and slow. Harry smiles. 

That's a start. 

**Wednesday**

It takes Harry fully half a day to realise that he's done something stupid. 

Harry wakes up with a hangover, his face smooshed into his pillow and still in the same shirt he wore last night. Martha the cat is sleeping in prawn-pose on the chair by the bed, which seems to exist solely to house Harry’s discarded clothes, and he’s proud that he and Ginny didn’t get too drunk at the pub to forget to bring her home. He thinks most of the damage actually occurred after she walked him to his house, the pair of them tipsy but not legless, and then decided to raid the sloe gin stash Harry’s kind neighbour gave him as a housewarming gift. Ginny left around 1am, picked up for a Side-Along by her housemate Gloria (safety first, there’ll be no drunken Flooing or Splinching on Harry’s watch, thank you), after forcing Harry to promise to take Wednesday off―properly off, with relaxing and genuine consideration of his future and wellbeing―and have a bit of a break from feeling rubbish about his book. 

Harry promised, midway through stuffing a pizza crust in his mouth, because he’s a great friend and also a hungry drunk. He suspects he and his friends have been wonderful for Abbotsbury's small takeaway restaurant business. 

He potters around his kitchen for most of the morning, making toast and tea and digging around for Paracetamol. He has a Floo call with Hermione, long overdue, and makes plans to properly catch up with them the week after next. He Floos Teddy and Andromeda too, and gets a genuinely riveting update on Teddy’s pet Tortoise and the gnomes in their garden. Impulsively, he owls Dean a copy of his cat story, which Dean’s been asking to see and which Harry has been feeling uncharacteristically shy about doing. Today, he figures fuck it. Harry’s written silly things before which Dean has attached charming doodle-drawings to, and Harry would be genuinely thrilled if he did that here, too. The only thing stopping him has been the deep weighted feeling of this story being nothing but procrastination from what he really _should_ be doing, but he’s not so sure that’s the case now. At least, he doesn't feel so bad about it anymore. He feels oddly like that weight on his shoulders has, if not quite alleviated, at least lifted a little. He still has a horrid meeting tomorrow, but Aggie is pleasant and reasonable and it won’t be the end of the world. Probably. Hangover aside, Harry feels incredibly positive. 

And then it all goes to shit. 

At midday Harry notices that Draco hasn't messaged him yet, which is definitely weird. At the time, he thinks nothing of it and just puts it down to timezones or Boggarts or any number of other things that might be occupying Draco’s time. When he opens their text chain, though, ready to fire off the usual _how are you, what time is it there, I hope you haven’t been swallowed by a mountain_ , he sees…an absolute wall of text. And it wasn't sent by Draco. 

His heart sinks into his stomach and right out of his arse into the floor and the molten core of the earth as he reads what Drunk Harry has sent to Draco. 

"Oh, fucking hell," he mutters, head cradled in one hand as he sits on the sofa, holding his phone in the other. 

It’s not that the message is incomprehensible, although parts of it certainly are. The bulk of it is pretty easy to make sense of. It’s not a declaration of love, but it’s bloody fucking close, Harry having apparently decided that midnight UK time, via Muggle technology and while swimming in pizza grease, was the perfect moment to let Draco know how much he fancied him, how he used to think he was an intolerable mean prick but now he thinks about how much he likes his hair and face and stupid posh voice, that he thinks Draco might like him too but he can never be sure but he’s trying not to be a mushroom anymore and do things he likes, and one of those things is Draco. Double entendre not really intended, but also he would like to do him. 

And also that he looked up ghost gum trees and they are rather nice, thanks. 

It has almost no grammar, and a lot of spelling errors, and definitely reads like a drunk text. It also absolutely reads like an honest confession, which is obviously the worst thing in the world. 

Well. Possibly the fact that Draco hasn’t replied, even though time zones would absolutely have allowed him to have seen it by now, is a bit worse. Harry sinks in his chair. Okay that’s maybe a lot worse. 

Harry knows he was in a brilliant mood after his frank and caring dressing down by Ginny, and that he gushingly told her all about how much he liked Draco and how much they talked, and oh god he went on a bit about the kisses Draco sent, because Harry is an idiot who has no filter when he drinks. He doesn’t know why he felt the need to ride that happy wave all the way to his phone and splash his feelings across the globe at Draco and ruin everything. Lovely. 

Harry groans. His good mood completely evaporated, he sets his phone down. His hands feel a bit shaky, and his stomach feels wrong. He takes a deep breath. He’s probably overreacting, he tells himself. Draco is busy, he has a whole house to de-ghoul, and so what if he would have usually responded by now, or initiated a conversation? Perhaps he’s not sure what to say, given that Harry has made everything spectacularly fucking awkward for him. Harry runs his fingers through his tangly hair, and then rests his elbows against the table, his chin and mouth smooshed into his palms. He blows a miserable raspberry, eyes wide and frantic. He needs a fucking Time-Turner. 

In a burst of inspiration, that may or may not actually be a burst of anxiety, Harry quickly fires off a, _Hey, how are you?_ to Draco, in a hope that it will at least kickstart some kind of conversation into gear.

He sets his phone down with his shaky wobbly hands, and then gets up to make some tea and go and panic at Ginny about what he’s done, while he waits for Draco to reply.

**Later That Same Miserable Wednesday**

Draco doesn’t reply. 

Not an hour after Harry messages. Not during Harry’s Floo call to Ginny. Or the one he had with Ron later. Not during lunch, or in the afternoon, or during dinner. Draco hasn’t responded by the time Harry is pulling his feet up under him on the sofa at 11pm, curled up in a sad ball of hangover, regrets, and cold leftover pizza. 

At 1am, Harry takes himself up to bed. The sheets are soft and cool and comforting, and Harry sort of wants to cry. Things might be fine, he reasons, but he knows in his gut that this radio silence from Draco is not a good sign. If things were fine, and this was something they could laugh off or move on from easily, Draco wouldn’t be avoiding him. And Harry feels like he’s being avoided. 

He knows it’s his fuck up. He shouldn't have gotten carried away and sent Draco such a word vomit of feelings and gibberish. For all that his life has felt like it’s covered way more than the average adult wizard’s has, he knows he’s got fuck all experience when it comes to relationships and being emotionally healthy in any way when it comes to his feelings. Knowing this doesn’t help the fact that he’s just tanked one of the most unexpectedly important friendships in his life, in spectacularly awkward fashion. 

Harry stares miserably at his traitorous phone screen, swaddled in his huge pile of blankets. He thinks about ringing Draco, but he doesn’t. He never wanted to make Draco feel uncomfortable because of Harry’s feelings, or to put him in a position where he would have to reject Harry. And now, in a fit of tipsy thoughtlessness, Harry has done exactly that. Calling Draco would only put him even more on the spot if he’s trying to think of a way to let Harry down gently, and Harry only feels more sick at the thought of it. 

He composes a text instead, more words filling up the little screen right under his own already sent messages. It just says, _Sorry about last night, and for making things weird. I was drunk and I’m an idiot. You don’t have to reply to me or respond to anything I said and we can never talk about again if you like. I’m so sorry, honestly, it was stupid―_

Harry stops himself in the middle of writing out _can we please still be friends?_ because it sounds like begging, and it is. It’s pathetic. Worst of all, there’s a real possibility that friendship isn’t in the cards anymore, and if that’s the case, Harry doesn’t want to know. Not right now, anyway. 

He leaves his thumb hovering over the send button, then lets the screen go dark instead. 

Harry goes to sleep feeling the worst he has in ages. 

**Thursday**

Harry gets home from his meeting with Aggie at roughly 2pm, after having sat in her office for nearly three hours. 

There was a lot of coffee, and a lot of exasperated sighing from Aggie, and one slightly mad proposition from Harry about what he would like to do instead of the book he promised them but is definitely, definitely not writing. Or able to write. Or in any way remotely interested in writing. 

He completely avoids talking about The Dreaded Drunk Text, or the fact Draco still hasn’t replied, and he isn’t sure if Aggie takes mercy on him and lets him get away with avoiding it because he looks so terrible, or if she’s too preoccupied with one of her biggest clients dropping a stonking change of plans on her lap right before deadline. Given the way their relationship works, it honestly could be both. 

At least she doesn’t yell at him, and seems genuinely quite interested in what Harry’s come up with as an alternative to, you know. Doing the things he definitely promised, and is contractually obliged, to complete for her. She even gives him a big hug afterwards, and whispers that she _"wants what’s best for you at the end of the day, you fucking idiot"_ , which is lovely and embarrassingly makes Harry tear up. He’s had a hell of a few days; he lets himself off the hook for this one. Aggie politely doesn’t call him out on it when he wipes his wet cheeks on her suit jacket shoulder pads, or mention his red-rimmed eyes. 

Change sucks. Being an adult is hard. Harry is so glad he has nice people around him to swear at him and like him even when he can’t do things for them, and to let him weep on their casual business attire.

Harry celebrates this small-yet-enormous victory by getting a sausage roll from the bakery up the street on his way home. As celebrations go, it’s pretty meagre and pathetic but rather suits Harry all the same. He grabs a few other groceries, milk and bread and a newspaper he’s going to pretend to read, and then finds a nice quiet spot around the back of the post office so he can Apparate into his home, because it’s a nice day but bugger the walk. He’s had a heartbreak, he deserves to be a bit lazy. 

He disappears with a _crack_ , sausage roll held in his mouth and shopping bag and wand held in each hand, and then reappears in his kitchen moments later. 

And comes face to face with Draco Malfoy. 

"Whab ‘l _buck_?" Harry yells, lurching backwards and almost tripping over his own feet. His wand is pointed straight at Draco’s chest before he even notices he’s raised it. 

"Hello. Um. Beg pardon?" replies Draco, awkwardly reaching out to steady Harry and then putting his hands in his pockets instead. "Please don’t hex me?" he adds, with a glance at Harry’s wand. 

Harry spits his sausage roll out. It lands with a soggy splat on the floor. "I said what the fuck?" Harry drops his shopping bags by his feet too, then looks around, stunned. "What’re you…how…" He blinks, trying to compose his thoughts into some semblance of order, only it’s like herding cats and they’re all on skateboards, and also on ice. That’s covered in marbles. Harry’s got no hope. 

"What?" is all Harry settles on eventually. He feels like he’s been hit on the head. 

Draco swallows. He has the decency to look slightly chagrined. He’s dressed in a white canvas shirt, tan jeans and black boots, his hair tucked behind his ears and his face slightly red. He looks possibly as surprised to see Harry as Harry feels to see him, which cannot be right. Harry’s so confused. 

He has a sudden massive urge to go outside and check the house number. He looks around the kitchen instead. It feels like he’s in the right house. That’s his breadbin. Those are his grotty dishes still in the sink because he was too mopey to do them last night, and that’s his cat sitting on the bench and watching them with vague interest and possible distrust. And that’s Draco stood in front of him.

"What," Harry repeats. 

After a moment Draco clears his throat, coughing into his cupped fist. "Granger gave me your ward keys," he explains, his voice pitched low like he’s confessing to something dodgy. Which, hang on a second. 

"Granger?" Harry blinks. "As in my Granger, Hermione? Hermione Granger?"

Draco nods. "That’s the one, yes. She, well. I spoke with her, and asked after your schedule today in case she knew it and she politely told me to wait here." Draco takes his hands out of his pockets and folds them in front of him, straightening up as he does so. It looks so formal, so stilted, that Harry feels like he’s going to burst out laughing. 

"Yes. Okay then…" Harry looks away, then back. He slowly pockets his wand. "Are you not meant to be in Australia right now?" he questions. 

Draco looks away, then quickly back again. "Yes, I was. I came back prematurely. I thought perhaps we should…talk." He clears his throat again. "In person." 

Harry’s stomach sinks. All the humour in the situation sinks away down the plughole with it. 

"Ohhhhhhh," Harry says, nodding and drawing out the word in an attempt to seem natural and normal and prepared for the horrible conversation that is surely about to ensue. Nothing good comes of ‘we should talk’, especially when it’s coming on the heels of a drunken confession, forty-eight hours of text silence, and a surprise blond in the kitchen. And a wasted sausage roll. 

"Yeah, talking sounds great," Harry mutters faintly. A horrid anxiety is crawling spider-light up his spine. He kind of wants to Apparate back out of the house, see if he can make a new life for himself in a tent behind the post office. He’s made do with less; it can’t be much worse than living in a cupboard. 

"Where are my manners, will you take a seat?" Draco offers, gesturing at the kitchen table. The chair nearest Harry wooshes backwards in a soft gust of Draco’s magic. "I made us tea." 

"This is my house," Harry says, but it sounds like a question. He takes in the table setting, the cups placed neatly on his recently tidied table. He has no idea how long Draco has been here waiting for him. He feels infinitely worse at the sight of the tea things, the brewed pot and the terrible strainer and his chipped china. Bad news is always delivered with a cup of tea. Harry swallows, wiping his sweating palms on his jeans. 

Draco cringes, cheeks flushing again. "Oh god, yes, sorry, I’m being incredibly impertinent. I just, I got here a while ago and"—Draco’s hair falls over his ears and into his face as he gesticulates while he talks—"sort of took over your house, I guess." He makes a face at himself. 

"No no, it’s fine." Harry plonks himself down into the chair. "Don’t apologise. Err." He gestures at the table. "Sit down and have some of the tea. That you prepared." 

Draco offers him a wry smile. "Thank you, Harry." He sits. Harry motions for Draco to pour the tea. They lapse into an awkward silence, which only ends when Draco makes an annoyed grunt.

"Merlin, this strainer is shit." 

Harry bursts into a hysterical laugh. "God." He rubs at his eyes, pushing his glasses up into his hair. He leaves his hands over his face. "Yeah, I’ve been meaning to buy a new one," he mumbles through his fingers. 

"Potter, are you okay?" There’s the sound of the teapot being put down against the table. Draco sounds genuinely concerned. 

"No." Harry laughs again, miserably. He pushes his fingers through his hair, then straightens up. He needs to get a grip, and just deal with the consequences of his actions. "It’s fine." He takes a deep breath, Draco watching him with wide eyes and a worried furrow between his brows. "Did you come straight here?" he asks. Draco looks clean-shaven, his clothes neat and pressed. He smells nice, Harry notes wretchedly. He doesn't seem like someone who’s just long distance Floo’d. 

Draco sets his teacup down with a sigh. "No, I went home first. Then to Astoria’s." He smiles slightly, levelling Harry with a look. "She wasn’t very happy to see me, but she never is. I wanted to see Scorpius. Have a cuddle. It was lovely." Draco’s smile turns wistful, then down at the corners of his mouth. "Of course, then he threw up in my mouth while I was yawning, so." Draco shrugs, and Harry barks a shocked laugh. "Gave him back to his mum for the rest of her allotted time," Draco goes on, watching Harry fondly. "I mean, I’m meant to be in another country anyway, so it was nice of her to let me have him for a day as is. Now I’m all stocked up on toddler time and thus, I came here." He takes a sip of his tea, and Harry takes a shaky breath and manages a smile back. 

It all feels so normal, deceptively usual, and Harry feels wrong-footed by it. Even more so than he already was. "You’re here," Harry repeats. 

"I am." As conversations go, this one is amazingly circular. "So," Draco starts, coughing into his hand again. "I’m so shit at this bit," he mutters, almost to himself. 

"Oh god." Harry opens his mouth, trying to think of something else to say, but in the end he just abruptly stands up. "Biscuit?" he says, heading for the nearest cupboard. If they’re doing this, he needs something to shove in his face. 

Draco frowns. "Um, no, I’m alright thanks. Harry―" 

"I’ve Hobnobs around here somewhere," Harry goes on, filling up the tense air with jabber and the sound of opening cupboards. "Or Digestives maybe, but the shit ones, with no chocolate."

"Harry." Draco’s chair creaks as he stands up. 

"Maybe Jaffa Cakes, I’m sure I bought some the other day, they were on offer―" 

"Harry!" Draco touches him on the elbow, gently coaxing him to turn around. "Shut up about biscuits, yeah?" he says, but he’s smiling, fonder than ever. 

Harry rests his head back against the open cupboard door, then lets his hand drop down from rummaging around and onto the counter top. "This is the pasta shelf anyway," he murmurs in reply. 

Draco chuckles. "Well, I’m not sure Penne really goes that well with tea." He stays standing close, hedging Harry in against the counter and the open cupboard door. He smells lovely. This close up, Harry can breathe in a deep lungful―woodsy cologne and green apple shampoo―and can see the spots on Draco’s cheekbones and tip of his nose where he’s caught a bit of sun.

Everything slips out of focus when Draco leans in to kiss him on the cheek. He pulls back and then does it again, pressing his mouth gently against Harry’s other cheek. His lips are so soft. Harry’s head swims. 

"I’m so bad at this bit," Draco repeats, breath gusting against Harry’s face. "The talking bit. Feelings." Draco makes a face, pulling back a little to give Harry space. Harry feels himself tilting forwards, almost chasing the contact. He sways back. He must look like an idiot. He has no idea what his face is doing. His brain has entirely clocked out. "But I like you so much," Draco goes on. " _So_ much." He strokes his fingers over Harry’s elbow, his hand warm through Harry’s thin shirt. "And then you messaged me." Draco inhales deeply, then laughs. "Well, you messaged some gibberish, Potter, I feel like I needed a Drunk-to-English translator. But I could get the jist of it." He licks his lips. Harry tracks the movement with his eyes, his stomach doing a somersault and his pulse starting to pick up the pace. "I had no idea. You’re so hard to read. I’ve been flirting with you for so, so fucking long." Draco laughs again, his knee bumping against Harry’s as he tucks his hair back behind his ear with his free hand. "I could never tell if you were aware and just politely not mentioning it, until you just went, _bleh_." He mimes vomiting with his hand, an accurate representation of the emotional word vomit Harry presented him with. 

Harry gusts a laugh, then frowns. "But you didn’t reply," he says softly. It’s not accusatory. His head is still too muddled by this whiplash-inducing conversation for that. He’s happy he’s still standing really. There’s a smile buried in his chest, trying to ride up onto his face in a wave of emotion. He swallows to keep it down, in case this really is too good to be true and he’s daydreaming it all.

Draco wrinkles his nose. "Yeah. I may have…panicked a bit." He sucks his lip into his mouth, worrying it with his teeth before releasing it again, shiny with spit. "Stupid of me. Sorry." He flicks Harry a glance, then moves his hand to Harry’s hip. There’s two layers of clothing between Harry’s skin and Draco’s hand, but Harry feels it like a brand. "Do you ever feel like you finally get something you want. Something you’ve wanted _so_ badly it’s kept you up at night, and then once it’s there, right in front of you, it’s too good. It just, can’t be real." Draco’s fingers curl over Harry’s hip, digging in ever so slightly. Harry's heart feels like it’s trying to thump out of his chest. Draco licks his spit-shiny lower lip. "You’re like that to me."

Harry gives up on the giddy grinning and just kisses Draco instead. 

It’s not elegant. It has absolutely no finesse, and lands harder than Harry intended, his teeth pressing up against the inside of his own lips. It’s perfect. Draco huffs a surprised noise, right into Harry’s mouth. Their teeth clack together as Draco smiles, Harry still dropping nipping kisses over his lips. 

"Oh my god," Harry mumbles, "I can’t believe, you just." He never gets out what he can’t believe Draco just, bringing his hands up to curve behind Draco’s neck instead. He’s not sure how that sentence ends anyway, what he intended to say. His knees feel weak, his thighs shaky and his chest in a fluttery riot. 

"I told you I was shit at this bit," Draco replies, voice low. His hands are on each of Harry’s hips, slipping around to his back. He fiddles with the hem of Harry’s jeans, fingers in the belt loops. The movement pulls Harry ever so lightly closer, belly to belly. 

"Yeah, you told me _now_." Harry rubs at the nape of Draco’s neck. He can’t seem to stop touching him, now he’s started. "After leaving it for two days." 

"I know." Draco kisses him, deeply and properly, for a long heady moment before he pulls back. He places a hand on Harry’s chest when Harry tries to follow him, chasing his lips. "I’m _bad_ at this. I’m not just saying that." He slides his hand up Harry’s chest, over the pearlescent buttons on his shirt and up to his bare collarbone. He strokes his thumb against it. "I’m not good at dating. I have one ex, and she left me with a kid and a fear of rejection the size of Ireland and I just…" Draco taps his thumb on Harry’s heated skin, then slips his fingers under the collar of his shirt. "You’re my friend now and I would rather not shit the bed here, as it were. It’s hard to think of someone wanting to get in line for me, when I come with…so much baggage. _So_ much." 

Harry blinks, taking Draco’s words in. "I died once," he says after a moment, shrugging one shoulder. 

"Wha―" Draco pinches Harry’s side, fingers digging into the tender ticklish flesh above his hips. "It’s not a competition, Potter!" 

Harry laughs, almost banging his head on the open cupboard door. "I know, I’m not trying to outdo you." He wriggles when Draco pinches him again, just hard enough to hurt nicely. "What I mean, is. You’re not likely to frighten me off by having a kid and an ex-wife, and…all this," Harry waves a hand over Draco, encompassing all of him: the pale Malfoy hair and grey eyes, the scarred mark on his arm that he tries to hide with long sleeves, the criss cross of scars along his chest. All the marks of their shared history, intertwined and grisly, that they both bare in different ways and which never fully healed over or went away, and likely never will. All of this doesn’t frighten Harry off. 

Draco doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he nods, a smile lingering on his lips. Harry wants to kiss him again, so he does, soft at first and then slipping into something deeper. His fingers press at the nape of Draco’s neck, keeping him close, as Draco slips one of his own hands up the back of Harry’s shirt. Harry stifles a moan, shuffling closer until his chest is pressed against Draco’s, the heat from his body slipping over onto Harry’s. Harry angles his groin away, his cock chubbing up in his pants, not quite enough to be obvious but getting there. He means to keep his kisses light, and sweet, but he’s waited so long and his self-control has never been amazing. He wants to eat Draco whole, right now. But still, he makes himself stop. 

"We can take things slow, though." His voice is low and raspy, which hilariously contradicts his words. Draco seems to agree, judging by his gust of laughter. 

He slips both hands lower, over Harry’s hips and just above the curve of Harry’s arse. He tugs him closer, his thigh bumping up against Harry’s hardening prick. "Uh huh," he says cheekily, as Harry sucks in a gasp. "This is slow?"

"This is," Harry adjusts his position, trying not to rub up against Draco and summon the powers of his upstairs brain. "Okay, ignoring my lower half," Draco chuckles against Harry’s cheek as kisses it, "we can be slow. Have dinner instead or something. You said you’re bad at this, and I don’t want to rush and make you—" Harry doesn’t say, _disappear on me for a few days while you freak out_. It sounds accusatory, like Draco fucked up, when he really didn't. Harry just doesn't want to make it happen again by Gryffindoring into a situation, if it can be avoided. Especially if all it takes is getting his lower half under control. 

Draco bites at Harry’s jaw. "Thank you," he murmurs. "This isn’t too fast. The bits I’m bad at…" Draco sighs. "I’ll try bloody hard at them, I can give you that. I’ve learned that the hard way." His lips quirk up into a smile. "And this"—he presses his thick thigh against Harry’s cock, making Harry suck his stomach in and hiss through his teeth—"this is the bit I’m actually good at," Draco murmurs, pressing their lips together. 

He kisses Harry deep, and dirty, sucking on Harry’s lip and pressing him back against the kitchen counter. It’s uncomfortable, digging into the meat of Harry’s arse, but Draco’s hands are creeping up the back of his top and his thigh is perfect between Harry’s legs. Harry’s not moving for anything. 

Harry spreads his legs wider, getting comfortable and shifting Draco against his own thigh, giving him something to grind down on. He feels Draco’s breath hitch, his teeth scraping over the line of Harry’s neck. 

"Will this get you off?" Harry rumbles, grabbing Draco by the arse and pulling him closer. He slips one hand down lower, cupping the join of Draco’s thigh and arse. 

"Honestly?" Draco lifts his head up, shaking his hair out of his eyes. His cheeks are flushed, his eyes bright. "Not usually. And definitely not in these tight trousers, they’re a fucking nightmare." He laughs. "But get these undone, and I’ll make an exception for you." 

"Oh yeah? Flattering," Harry scoffs, as much as he can while diving for the button of Draco’s fly. 

"It is, though," Draco responds, working at the button of Harry’s jeans. Their knuckles brush against each other, Harry's breath catching in his throat each time Draco’s hand bumps against his prick. "You’re so stupidly fit." 

Draco yanks Harry’s jeans down to his thighs, palms him through his underwear and then pulls them down too. The brush of cool air is starting against his cock. Harry manages to do the same, getting Draco’s trousers and pants down under his bum. He pulls Draco up against him, sighing at the feeling of bare skin on skin. 

"I’ve wanted to do this for so long," Harry groans, mouthing at Draco’s jaw and pawing at his back, his arse, getting his hands under his canvas shirt and rubbing over his shoulder blades. He wants to touch him everywhere, all the inconsequential places and the exciting ones too: the backs of his knees, the dip of his throat, the shadows under his clavicles. It’s maddening and brilliant. 

"What, hump against me in your kitchen?" Draco teases breathlessly, slipping his thigh back between Harry’s legs. There's just enough wet from Harry’s leaking cock to ease the way, slicking up Draco's leg and the crease of his hip. They rut against each other like the inexperienced teenagers they never really got to be, just enough of a rhythm to be satisfying, to leave them breathless and dizzy and get them off. Draco digs his fingers into the thick of Harry’s thigh, lifting his leg just enough to really grind down against him. Harry lets his head thunk back against the ledge of the open cupboard, Draco mouthing at the line of Harry’s throat. 

When Harry comes it’s with a mouthful of Draco’s hair in his gob, his hand fisted in the back of Draco’s shirt and his toes curling hard in his shoes. He gasps, spurting over Draco’s hip and the base of his shirt, making a mess between them. Draco follows soon after with a gut-punched grunt, his mouth open in an almost-bite against Harry's shoulder as he pumps his hips against Harry’s hot skin. 

Harry closes his eyes, catching his breath. He can still sense the afternoon sunlight behind his closed lids, hear the breeze rustling through the tall trees in his garden. The cupboard ledge is hard against the back of his head, the edge of the kitchen bench digging a hard line into his bum. This situation between them is getting sticky and gross. Harry slings his free arm low around Draco’s waist, letting his forearm touch bare skin. He kind of wants to stay here forever. 

"Fuck," Draco mumbles after a moment, mouth pressed tight against Harry’s shoulder. Harry can feel the heat of his breath through the material. 

"Mmm," he agrees, nodding his head lazily. He needs a nap, a long lie down. And then more of this. Days of this, and just for starters. He can feel himself smiling, tired and dopey. He thinks that of all the things he wants, he might actually get them. 

"Will you stay for dinner?" asks Harry, pulling Draco’s fine, tangled hair away from his lips. 

"Yes, please." Draco turns his head, then presses his hot lips against Harry’s neck. "I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me, Potter."

**Two Months Later**

Harry’s children's book, about a garden-traipsing cat and the two enemies-turned-friends who solve crimes with her and with illustrations by one Dean Thomas, is a massive, massive hit. 

A hit, that is, in the sense that it has a small launch, and gets sent out to all the schools in Harry's area, and ends up on a bunch of shelves in local libraries. Harry has never been prouder. 

He sends copies to all of his friends. He sends flowers and an edible arrangement to Aggie. He throws his typewriter in the bin. 

He spends the day of the launch in bed with Draco in comfy PJs, champagne on his lips and an airy, light feeling in his chest that has nothing to do with the bubbly. 

He feels good.

***

**Author's Note:**

> say hello to me on [tumblr](https://shiftylinguini.tumblr.com/) if you like xxx


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